Mr. Ahamed essentially embedded with the IMF staff and offers a snapshot — not a reporter’s tick-tock nor an economist’s critique of IMF missteps but more of an anthropological account – of what he saw on stage and off at the International Monetary Fund’s Washington headquarters (“a large glass atrium, reminiscent of a 1970s Hyatt), at the 2012 annual meeting in Tokyo (85 U.S. delegates, 73 from Brazil, 70 from Nigeria but only 13 from India plus 1,500 or so journalists) and on IMF missions (a lovely word that conveys the fund’s occasional evangelical streak) to Dublin and Maputo.

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